Oh, Tad... Sigh.

Tad Callister's devotional address given at BYU-Idaho entitled "The Lord's Standard of Morality" was recently published in this month's issue of the Ensign. I honestly enjoyed the article and agreed with almost everything he said, until I got to the section on Immodest Dress:

"The dress of a woman has a powerful impact upon the minds and passions of men. If it is too low or too high or too tight, it may prompt improper thoughts, even in the mind of a young man who is striving to be pure.
Men and women can look sharp and be fashionable, yet they can also be modest. Women particularly can dress modestly and in the process contribute to their own self-respect and to the moral purity of men. In the end, most women get the type of man they dress for."

And then I wanted to scream. 

This is so wrong on so many levels, beginning with the fact that it perpetuates rape culture. If you are unfamiliar with this term, it can mean a lot of different things, from the normalization, even sexualization of rape to the concept that a woman's body is inherently sexual and it is therefore her responsibility to keep her body covered so that a man is not tempted beyond his ability to bear it. In a word, it's female objectification. 

I've realized recently that so much of sexism is just male egoism to the millionth degree. It is putting women in the context of a heterosexual male gaze all the time and forcing women to view themselves constantly from the heterosexual male perspective. 

I'm not going to restate here everything that I wrote in my lengthy objectification post, but my biggest problem with this comment is the implication that women dress FOR men. I can promise you right now that the only time I've ever thought about how a man might view me when I was getting dressed was on my wedding day. The rest of the time I dress in what is comfortable and what is reasonable for the activity I'm about to do and what I think I look nice in. And that's the way it should be. I don't dress FOR men.

I hate this quote because it implies that a woman who doesn't have a man that treats her well is partially to blame because of the way she dressed. Victim blaming 101. The moral purity of men is not, never has been and never will be the responsibility of a woman. In fact in Muslim countries where women have strict modesty laws, the rape and sexual assault statistics are even worse than in the U.S. Why? Because forcing a woman to veil her body in order to protect the men around her from her feminine wiles teaches both men and women that women's bodies are inherently sexual and that men can't control themselves.

I want to teach my son that regardless of what a woman may or may not be wearing, it is his responsibility to look her in the eyes and see first and foremost a HUMAN. That a woman's body is just that, a body and no more inherently sexual than his own. That his moral purity is entirely and solely his own responsibility. I want to teach my sons and my daughters that modesty is about recognizing the sacredness of the temple that their body is and not using their body to get attention or as a billboard.